As the US government continues to sanction China over different economic aspects, House Reps. are about to pass a House Bill that could see TikTok get banned; not unless TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance sells ownership of the popular social media app to a US company.
Why the Proposed House Bill Directly Affects TikTok
In general, the House Bill, captioned as The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, aims to address concerns over national security and not to target TikTok specifically. It’s just that the massive use of TikTok’s social media app in the US, poses potential risks of providing the China Communist Party (CCP) with cyber info.
Being a China-based entity, TikTok owner ByteDance is under the regulatory control of Chinese authorities, which gives the latter the power to demand access to all data belonging to about 150 million US citizens stored in the social media platform. That being the situation, there is alway the possibility that through TikTok, Chinese authorities can get hold of critical information that CCP can use in launching political offensives against the US.
While China is also a major trading partner of the US, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has advanced a bipartisan bill that addresses concerns raised by the US military. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) proposed that ownership of social media apps as in the case of TikTok, must remain under US jurisdiction and control.
TikTok is Already Banned in Several Western Countries
Actually, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, India and several Western countries like Belgium and Denmark, have already banned the use of TikTok’s social media app also for cyber security reasons.
The North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) and their member countries have explicitly forbidden staff to install the TikTok app in their office-connected phones.
